


THE DARKER WORLD

by thoughtsdemise



Category: SatAM Sonic the Hedgehog, Sonic the Hedgehog - All Media Types
Genre: Blood, Gore, Horror, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-08
Updated: 2016-08-08
Packaged: 2018-08-07 09:50:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,669
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7710466
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thoughtsdemise/pseuds/thoughtsdemise
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A personal exploration of the origins of the Dark One from within the Duality Universe.</p>
<p>Disclaimer:  I’m only responsible for my own stupidity.  Duality concepts belong to Liz-sama (look her up on deviantart).</p>
            </blockquote>





	THE DARKER WORLD

“Tis a strong man who can stand against the darkness when there is no light left.”

-Fall-

He moves with all quickness through a barren and rocky landscape.  His mind, however, flies over a path that is far different than the path that his feet traverse.  As the air is cut to shreds about his form, his mind moves in the opposite direction as he physically moves forward.  Anger ignites in his heart as well as jealousy as he turns his thoughts to the only woman who had truly held his heart.  He growls as his rival flashes into these thoughts of hatred.  The rival that had caused this riff to open between the woman he loved and himself.  If it had not been for that skunk...A damn skunk of all things, Sonic growls to himself.  Anger turns into a hot rage as his speed picks up a bit more pace.

How dare that bitch compare him to such a detestable creature?!

He turns automatically to avoid piles of rubble that lay in his path.  He laughs harshly in his mind as he lingers over thoughts of how nice it would be if that skunk was just a pile of rubble to move around but leave behind in his wake as he moved forward.  A pile of rubble, he thinks, no more like a pile of stinking shit.  He sneers as the jagged remains of Robotnik’s Doomsday Device begin to come into view.  He was beginning to think Sally was another obstacle in his path to be moved around and forgotten.

Maybe I should...

His thought is interrupted as a lightning bolt strikes the ground very near to where he had just been.  Only his years of training and playing at being the big perfect hero had saved his life.

As he stares blankly at the smoking ground, his mind trying to catch up with his feet, the sky rips open, and the area becomes drenched by a downpour of heavy rain and “Goddamnit!!” hail the size of golf balls.  He looks about in the growing darkness for a shelter.  He spies an object in the distance and heads for it not really thinking about heading back to his home, back to the trouble in his heart and mind.  He speeds over the flooding ground.

When he arrives at the black towering object, he discovers that it was a mountain that had been split down the middle by some unseen hand.  Considering what this area had been through recently, he was not surprised that the area was showing signs of collateral damage.  He ducks into a crevice that is just large enough for him.

He stands as the water dripping off his form is the only sound in the cave.  Surprisingly, not even the sound of the downpour or the hail smacking the earth intruded into this place.  An unsettled feeling wraps about him and screams danger, but he ignores it.  After all, if there was any real danger here, he could just out run it like all the other times.

He sheds his backpack and spins quickly to get the water out of his spines and fur.  He blinks for a moment trying to adjust his balance again because despite what he bragged about to everyone, he would still get slightly dizzy after spinning quickly like that.  It was not as bad as say Antoine, but it did take him a moment to readjust himself.

He fumbled a bit in the darkness for his pack and grinned when he found it.  He opened it, and as soon as his hand touched it, the power-ring began to shimmer.  He pulled it out and admired it in the light.  He had a lantern in his pack, but he decided he would use the ring instead because it always filled him with a slight warmth.  And more than that, he knew it would piss Sally off if she knew he was using it like a lantern.

“This is a tool for battle not-” Oh yeah, would she be angry when she found out.  But right now Sonic really did not give one damn Mobium what she thought right then or would think.  It was a childish act of revenge on his part, but it made him feel his rage less, turning it back into anger which he could deal with more manageably.  He slipped his pack over his shoulders and lifted the ring higher.

What he found slightly repulsed him at first.  Just beyond his sneakered foot a strange pool of black ooze bubbled sporadically in the faint light.  At first he thought it was oil or tar.  But as he held the ring closer to the stuff, the light was refracted away from the surface.  He lifted one foot and kicked lightly at the ooze which absorbed the blow but pulled back at the touch.

Sonic shivered and edged around the ooze to another opening a bit further back into the crevice.  He had glimpsed it in the dim light and had decided a little exploring was just what he needed to take his mind away from his troubles, and delay his return to Knothole.  Another childish act of vengeance but he was willing to let Sally sweat and worry for awhile.  Would serve her right, he thought as he went deeper into the mountain.

He ran his gloved hand against the black volcanic rock and wondered if this had been a volcano at one point in its lifetime.  He continued on down a relatively straight passage.  At the end of which, he spied a strange greenish-black glow.  He quickened his footsteps thinking that perhaps the light was from a cave crystal that could glow in the dark.  Bringing that stuff back with him would surely result in his winning Sally’s complete favor back.

Yeah, he told himself in the gloom.  Win her back then dump her ass and see how she likes it.

Although he knew he would never do such a thing to her, it helped him feel better to make the plans because in his mind, thinking and acting were two very separate things.  For instance like thinking about wringing Sonya’s neck in her sleep was far different than him attempting it even though it would make his life a whole lot easier, especially because it would get the other Freedom Fighters off his back about why she had been allowed to stay in the first place then given missions of her own.

Another thing Sally had done without his consent when he was supposed to be the leader of the Knothole Freedom Fighters too.  It really miffed him when she would still act like royalty even though she claimed that in the Great Forest there were no titles.  That royal attitude of hers had rubbed his quills the wrong way more than once, and a hedgehog did not like anybody rubbing its quills the wrong way especially an aggressive alpha male like Sonic thought himself to be sometimes.

He paused just short of the greenish-black glow thinking about Sally before Geoffrey had slithered his way between them.  Sure they had their problems as a couple, made worse by the fact that they were in a war, but they had always found common ground quicker than Sonic could run and be making up before the next heartbeat passed between them.  His tail wagged slightly, and he blushed as he fondly recalled some of their make-ups.  Even her high and mighty royal attitude had been easier to swallow.  In a perverse way, he kind of liked when she exhibited her more aggressive side trying to get him to submit to her.  His grin grew as he recalled countless times he had gone out of his way to bring that side of her out just to see what she could or would do.

That was the one thing that had snared his attention to her when they were kids.  She would never really let him have his way even after Mobotroplis fell and became Robotropolis.  The others in Knothole had always treated him as a special hero because of his gifts and ability to use the power rings.  Sally had never done that even refused to do that.  To her, he had been Sonic as she had been Sally to him.  Sure there were problems, but it was never anything that they could not handle together.

That is until Geoffrey St John showed up, Sonic growled to himself.

That bastard had messed everything up.  Sonic’s rage grew.  And unbeknownst to the outraged hedgehog, the greenish-black light grew as well.  It was like a fire, and Sonic’s rage and negative emotions were fueling it.  Sonic snaps out of his revive and takes the last few steps that would place him in the glow.

He blinks as he enters a large circular space.  The smooth walls of the space seemed to hum with an unknown power.  Sonic’s eyes travel briefly around the room before they rest on the object in the center of that strange room.  Suspended between two spiral horn-like protrusions of rock that jutted out from the ceiling and floor of the chamber was a chaos emerald.

Before Sonic could delight in finding a chaos emerald, however; he took a closer look at it.  There rotating slowly something that was unlike any emerald he had ever laid eyes on before.  Its hue was like pitch, and there seemed to be no inner light shining from its core like the other emeralds he had seen or held.  In fact the core of this stone seemed to be giving off an aura that was darker than the stone itself.  Now most people’s common sense would tell them to run upon experiencing the evil that lay about the stone like a thick bog, but Sonic had never been one to listen to his common sense even now when it was screaming for him to run as fast as he could to get away.  No, in fact he stepped closer to the stone thinking only that he had to get it back to Knothole so that someone like Snively could not lay their hands on it.  He reaches forward but stops suddenly frozen.

:Sonic.:  A voice slimes its way over his body and into his mind.  :I have been waiting for you, Sonic.:

He shudders and backs away, trying to find the crack in the wall, but he only finds a solid wall where he had entered this place.  The light of the ring slowly fades out, and he, with the chamber, is cast into the greenish black glow.  Sonic lays his ears back and bristles slightly as the stone’s rotation seems to pick up speed then slow as if it were a heartbeat or trying to mimic one.

“Who-who are you?  How do you know me?!”

A chuckle smoothes over Sonic and causes the young hedgehog to shudder in unexpected pleasure.  :I have been waiting for you, Sonic.:  The delightful voice repeats as if it was trying to seduce him.

Sonic shakes himself partially free of the stone’s influence as the thought that this could be an untriggered Robotnik trap occurs to him.

:No,: the voice continues, :I am nothing that came from your enemy.:  The sweet chuckle again.  :In fact, I was quite impressed with your actions against him.:  The voice was trying to stroke Sonic’s ego, but the hedgehog was on alert.

:You have much potential, Sonic.  Much power that just needs to be brought to the surface.:  The voice had suddenly changed tactics.  It went from pleasure to flattery to logic in the span of thirteen heartbeats.

Sonic was not being convinced though.  He continues on in his defensive stance.  “I’ll ask you once more.  Who are you?!”  It was said forcefully which seemed to both please and anger the entity in the stone.

Sonic heard a threatening growl that reverberated off the walls of the chamber and observed the stone had stopped spinning.  Sonic’s ears had also caught an oozing, bubbling sound like...He screams in outrage and repulsion as a black ooze similar to the ooze he had found at the entrance wrapped tightly about his body.  As Sonic struggles against the ooze, it began to crush him.

:You could be great, Sonic,: the voice was continuing on in its logical way.  :More powerful than even your blood father could ever have hoped to be.  I can aide you to this greatness.  Just give yourself over to me, and we shall join to become the most powerful being on this planet.:  The voice caressed Sonic’s mind with images of unmatched pleasure and power.  :Everything would be yours; even Sally would quake with desire for you.:

Sonic fought against the ooze harder at the mention of Sally.  There was no fucking way in hell he would let this creature anywhere Knothole, and he sure as Robotnik was damned to the deepest pits in hell would never even let it near Sally or even see her.  As if sensing his renewed vigor. the stone’s darkness shone darker absorbing the light that was in the room and casting it aside.  The black ooze about Sonic moved to cover his entire body.  Sonic opened his mouth to draw in air, but the ooze invaded.  Not only did it invade there, but every orifice, every pore on his body was assaulted by the ooze and the voice that sliced viciously at his being.

:Give yourself over to me, Sonic.:  The voice caressed his mind as it also tortured his body.  It chuckled at his silent screams of pain.  :Give yourself over to me, and this will all go away.  I swear that I can make everything better.  Everything,: the voice whispered a final caress into his mind.

Sonic struggles became weaker as his mind was filled with images of Sally.  Images that showed how she sought to control him, and finally, how she had betrayed his true heart’s love for a worthless pile of shit who she was probably banging right then even as he writhed in agony to protect her.

Sonic’s single scream of agony shattered the air as he descended into the black pit of despair.  He reached forward but knew only a void of emptiness and demonic never-ending laughter that devoured him completely.

-O-

“When he has accepted what is for what is, he shall be reborn as an exquisite being.”

-Rebirth-

It was all that bitch’s fault.

That was the first thought that surfaced out of the dark void that had so thoroughly wrapped itself about Sonic’s soul.

“No,” a strange voice touches the hedgehog’s ears.  “I am no longer Sonic.  I am something more.”  He hesitates as a dark smile comes to his lips.  “I am even more than I once was all those lifetimes ago.”  He considers a suitable name for himself with a slight pout as he looks about the area.

A blackened bed of bare earth stretches out before his.  Even the sky trembled with a darker sense than it should have been at this hour.  Nothing stood on the bare earth but the one who had been the cause of its devastation.  The dark personage finds himself purring lustfully and wagging his tail.

His tail?

A gleeful whoop escapes his muzzle as he tugs playfully at his own tail.  Then he tugs at his ears which flick about the area looking for sound even though none intruded upon the place.  Even the wind did not blow here where a newly birthed demon sat exploring his new body, and it’s strange design.  He pets his own spines before pricking a finger on the end of one.

He growls and pulls his bare hand back to look at the blood that wells out of the fresh wound.  His growl turns into a sigh of pleasure as his eyes drink in the blood’s beautiful color.  He lifts the finger to his nose and sniffs the scent of his blood in deeply before sucking the finger into his mouth.  He shudders in delight as the metallic taste descends upon his tongue.  All too quickly though the small wound has closed.  He frowns like a spoiled child who had had its favorite treat taken from it.  A desire to claw open his own flesh strikes this strange being, but when he lifts his other hand to rend the palm open of the one hand, he sees the black chaos emerald.

His bloodlust forgotten, he purrs submissively as he delicately rolls the stone between his ungloved hands.  He lovingly lingers over each aspect of the stone.  Like a lover trying to memorize the body of its beloved, he moves his eyes over the stone’s every detail as his fingertips dance longingly over its smooth and flawless surface.

“Yes, perfect,” he murmurs, “perfect in every way just like me.”

He nuzzles the stone against his cheek before rubbing it against his chest.  He was trying to mark it with his new scent and his new body with its beautiful aura.  After rubbing it over his heart several times, he brings the stone to his lips and kisses it very gently.  He reaches behind himself to remove Sonic’s old pack.  He dumps its contents carelessly on the ground.  He looks over the mess and fishes out two cloths.  More like rags really, he considers silently, but they would do until a finer material could be provided.  He wraps the stone lovingly up in the rags before nestling it into the pack.  He places the entire package in front of himself instead of on his back again.  After all he would not want any harm to come to his beautiful jewel.

He stands and looks about himself one last time.  He had still not found a suitable name, but decided that, like the rags, the name of Sonic would do until he was able to achieve his rightful place that fate had decreed only for him and no other.  Besides he would need that name’s use to get back into K-Knot-hole? until he was assured of his powers once again.

Drawing on lingering memories of what had once been Sonic, the newborn demon now known by the vanished hero’s name speeds forward over the flat ground towards the direction of Knothole.  Sonic sneers at its name in contempt.  He enjoys the rushing wind that moves about his body as he picks up speed and runs head long towards the first step of his destiny.

It was going to be a wondrous night with the promise of more to come.

“Today the true awakening begins with his arrival as the world descends into its place of his craftsmanship.  Today was the glorious dawn of the darker world, his world.”

-O-

-Arrival-

Sally looks at the door with a deeply furrowed brow.  She paced quickly back and forth as she always did when she was nervous or anxious about something.  Not three hours before her long time friend and lover had been brought back to the safety of Knothole after being gone for three weeks without a word.  Not to mention the state he had been found in.  Various wounds had covered his body; impressive bruises that made him seem even bluer amidst the black; and to top it all off he had been unconscious and unresponsive to any voice even hers.

Tears flood her eyes as guilt and shame weed their way into her heart.  At first she had brushed Sonic’s absence off as a childish act of revenge for their fight and her sending him off to put an end to it.  She had even resolved to chew him out when he got back before she told him that she had finally done what he had suggested when Geoffrey had first come to Knothole.  She had kicked the damn skunk out of their home on his ass but not before putting a dent in his head so that he would never again try to...Sally shudders at the thought.  Sonic had been right all along.  Damn cute hedgehog, she sniffs and looks at the door.  She resolves to listen to his advice more closely from then on even if some of it was harebrained and half-baked.  She would do anything it took as long as he was okay.

“Sally-girl?”  A sweet Southern accent calls her focus to the owner of it.  A half-robotized rabbit looks at her with concern.

“Yes, Bunnie, what is it?”  She tries to keep the tears from her voice.

“Why don’t y'all go back and get some rest?  Ah’ll watch over the little old sugahog.”  Bunnie rubs Sally’s shoulder.  “Ain’t nuthin’ keen be done but ta wait.  Like Rotor always be sayin’ ‘bout that there metal eatin’ stuff.  Same thin here, Sally-girl.”

Sally nods.  “I know but...”  She looks longingly at the door.  The only reason she wasn’t in the room now was because Rotor and the doctor  had kicked her out.  Her nervous pacing had driven both of them to distraction so they could not concentrate on healing Sonic correctly.

“Go get y’all some rest, sugah.  Leave the old sugahog to me.  Ah’ll come geet ya as soon as he be wakin’ those sweet lil’ ol green eyes up.  Ah’ll even be faster thn Sawnik on ice, Sally-girl.”

Sally laughs half heartedly but nods her head.  She needed some rest.  Hopefully, Sonic would not be too mad if he woke up, and she was not there to greet him.  Bunni waves good bye to Sally as she sits down to wait.

As Sally is walking back to her hut, she runs across Angela and Tails who look at her worried.  In Angela’s hand lies the ratty old handkerchief that Uncle Chuck had given him.  Sally knew that cloth well because of the lacy pattern.  She also knew it was one of Sonic’s most prized possessions even more than his sneakers because it had belonged to his mother right before she passed away during childbirth.  She reaches for the cloth, but Angela pulls it back with a grim look to her face.  Sally moves closer and realizes it is wrapped around something.  Angela folds back the cloth edges to reveal something that looked like a-

“A black chaos emerald?”  Sally asks stunned.

Angela’s brow furrows deeply as she gingerly holds the stone so she does not have to touch its surface.  “I am uncertain.”

Sally looks quizzically at her then at Tails.  “Tails, where did you find that?”

Tails looks like a child who had just been caught with his hand in the candy jar.  “I didn’t mean to be nosy, Aunt Sally, but I went into Sonic’s pack-”

Sally looks at the young kit who blushes embarrassed.  She knew Sonic would not mind, but she had had a long discussion with Tails about snooping through other things with no reason but to be nosy after she had caught him and Sonic (the blue pincushion had gotten his head severely dented) in her underwear drawer a few years back.  Tails had been very young and not known any better, but Sonic-it still made her growl in frustration and blush when she remembered how Sonic had remarked how nice she would look in the little black lacy number she had stuffed in the far back in a box wrapped tightly several times with string.  That comment had prompted the huge dent in his head and the foot placed firmly up his rear.

Sally clears her throat and smoothes back her hair to hide her light blush.  “I am sorry, Tails.  I should have asked you or someone else to check Sonic’s pack awhile ago.”  She smiles at the young fox who waved his twin tails slightly, a sign that he was glad not to be in any sort of trouble.

That was the one thing Sally really admired about the kit.  When he made a mistake, he learned and retained the lesson.  He even learned and retained the lessons of Sonic’s mistakes when the speed demon had the tendency to forget even though he may have learned something several times.  Needless to say, Sonic had more than his fair share of dents in his head and not all of those dents were from Sally either.  Tails rubs the underside of his nose as he beams under Sally’s approval.  A trait he had picked up from the hedgehog, and one Sally found endearing in both of them.

“Thanks, Aunt Sally.”

Angela clears her throat to recall their attention.  She had rewrapped the emerald and held it out to Sally.  “Princess Sally, I am leaving this in your care.  I must return to my people at once to discover the meaning of this emerald.  Make certain to keep it hidden until I return and do not touch the surface of the stone if at all possible.”  Sally could see Angela visible shudder as she handed the stone to Sally.  “I made the mistake of touching its surface,” Angela pauses.  “There is something unclean about it.”

As Sally takes the stone in her hand, she can feel a slight pulsation of the dark power.  Her first instinct was to smash the stone, but Angela had given her specific instructions, and she knew best when it came to things of this nature.

“I’ll put it in a safe place until you return.”  Sally nods to Angela as she walks off with Tails behind to help her prepare for the journey.

Sally holds the small package as gingerly as Angela had as she enters her hut.  She opens her safe in which secret documents were kept and locks the stone away.  She moves away from the safe and turns on several lights before retiring for the night.  As she climbs on what had been her and Sonic’s bed,-It will be again, she promises herself-an old stuffed teddy bear touches her hand.

Sally picks up the bear lovingly and pats its head.  Another of Sonic’s prized possessions that no one but she and he knew about.  And it wasn’t really his anymore since he had given it to her on their first anniversary after they had become an official item.  Her hands move lovingly over it's thread-bare cloth that was now more patches than fur.  What fur existed was more gray than brown from age.  She touches its one remaining beady eye that was cracked and dulled with age as well.  She tugs very gently on the single ear and snuggles down with the bear.  She breaths in deeply, and Sonic’s scent envelops her like a warm embrace.

She remembers what Sonic had told her when he gave her Bebe.

“This is Bebe, Sal,” the hedgehog had blushed at Sally’s smile.  “I want you to have him.”

“Sonic, I-”  She had been deeply touched, but he continued.

“Bernie made him for me when I was smaller.”  His hand had lovingly touched the toy’s head.  “She made him for me to help keep the darkness away because I use to be afraid of being alone in the dark.”  Sonic’s voice had hitched, and Sally had embraced him.  She knew losing Bernie who he considered his mother to this day was very hard on him.

As Sally is about to drift away on another memory of Sonic, she sits bolt upright in the bed; the bear was clenched tightly in one hand.  Her eyes were big as a single horrifying thought occurred to her.  She had almost become like Ana and Bernie to Sonic.  Tears stream down her face as she hugs the bear to her heart sobbing silently.

All the women that Sonic had ever really loved or shared a very deep connection in his heart with had left him behind in one way or another.  Ana had been taken away by death, Bernie had been taken away by sorrow over the loss of her husband, and she...she.  Sally shakes her head and holds the bear tighter.  She had almost foolishly allowed Geoffrey to take her away from Sonic.  She was the only one who had stayed in Sonic’s life, and she had almost thrown that away for nothing.

As the tears fell, she rocked slightly as if comforting a small child.  It was something she had done to comfort herself when she was smaller since she had no mother to rock her when she was filled with sorrow.  The nannies were okay, but they were not the same thing as a mother, or at least her nannies had not had a mother’s love.  Rosie had tried but with her own children to care for.  Sally looks at the bear one last time before kissing its head and laying back down.

She makes a silent vow.  “I swear,” she mouths, “I swear that I will always remain by his side.  I will be his and only his for all eternity.  I love you more than my own life, beloved,” she adds in a whisper to the bear.

As she drifts into a dreamless sleep, Sally is unaware of the delighted chuckle that seems to be emitting from the stone.  It had heard her vow and her ending declaration.  It transferred this information to the mind of its new master who had emitted the chuckle.  In the dark of Rotor’s hut, the creature that was now Sonic smiled dreamily and settled into a sleep filled with such dark and twisted images.  Rotor had seen the smile and sighed with relief because soon Sonic would return to them.  He had just smiled his old smile.  Everything was going to be okay.

*

She starts awake.  There was a pounding on her door.  She looks out the window.  The pre-dawn mist had settled over Knothole that morning like every other early Spring morning, but there was something different about its quality.  Another barrage of pounds has her springing out of bed and rushing for the door.  Maybe something had happened to Sonic.  Her heart skipped a beat as she tore open the door.  It revealed a frightened Tails who was shaking with fear.

“Aunt Sally!  Quick!  Sonic’s awake.”

Relief touched her at the news but was soon replaced by an unsettled feeling as Tails continued.  “He’s awake and screaming for that black chaos emerald.”  Tails jumps slightly when Sally runs to the safe and violently opens it.  “He had wanted his pack first but then started screaming when he found it empty and you hadn’t come with it.”

Sally grabs the stone and dashes for Rotor’s with Tails on her heels.  Perhaps he only wanted to make certain it had not fallen into the wrong hands.  Perhaps he wanted his mother’s handkerchief returned as well.  There was something warning her not to give Sonic the stone, but she suppressed it.  Now was not the time for such thoughts.

Before she got to the first step of Rotor’s porch, she could hear raised voices and Sonic’s screams for the stone.  The doctor’s voice sounded strange, and Rotor’s sounded panicked.  When Sally opened the door, the scene she saw horrified her.

Sonic had the doctor tightly by the throat while he stood on the bed.  He was shaking his victim like a rag doll.  Rotor was gripping Sonic’s arm as the two nurses tried to pry Sonic’s claws free from the doctor’s throat which was caked in blood where the claws had dug viciously into the flesh.  Sonic continued to scream like a child wanting its toy.  Sally stood frozen in terror as the macabre display unfolded before her.  The stone rolls from her grasp and lands with a dull thunk on the porch.

Sonic stops his assault on the doctor to look at Sally and the emerald laying at her feet.  Everyone else had frozen.  Slowly Sonic releases the doctor who fell into the nurses’ and Rotor’s arms.  He jumps down to the floor and pads softly over to Sally who is still looking on in frozen horror.  He looks into her blue eyes for a moment before bending to retrieve the gem.

When he rises, he looks at Sally with a loving smile and cups her face with the hand that was not bloodied.  He pets her cheek lovingly before drawing her lips to his own for a soft kiss.  He lightly licks her lips before kissing them once more with a light purr and wag of his tail.  He caresses her cheek and looks deeply into her eyes.

“Thanks, Sal,” he murmurs before cradling the stone close to his heart and moving off into the dawn’s light.

The world seems to slowly fade as the ones who are left behind sag to the floor like puppets whose strings have been cut.  The doctor was holding his throat but neither he nor the nurses made any attempt to stop the bleeding.  

Tails was the only one left standing after the whole affair.  He drops to his knees and asks the question that everyone there wanted to know.  “What the fuck just happened?”

Sally was too stunned to scold Tails for the profanity because she was wondering the same thing.  They could only stare blankly at each other as no one moved to answer.

 

-The Darker World-

 

Through manipulation,

Through pain,

Through blood paths of victory,

It had finally came.

 

The world he carved.

The world he craved.

The world which would forever bear his name.

 

The darker world had been unleashed.

It was ready for him.

And he would not let it slip

Through his fingers again.

 

The world was his.

The world was his.

The world was his.

Everything, everyone was finally his,

And he would make them all love him

In this world of his own design.

 

Their fates were sealed

To his desires

To his dreams

And what a glorious dream to dream

 

A dream which would never be replaced.

A dream which would never be plundered.

A dream which would be forever sustained.


End file.
